Nurses will help police officers sent to deal with incidents involving mentally ill offenders, under plans revealed by the Home Secretary.

Theresa May announced the plans to the Police Federation on Wednesday.

It followed a report by Staffordshire's police commissioner which said officers spent up to 25% of their time dealing with mental health-related incidents.

It looks like the Government is finally realising Police Officers are not doctors or social workers, yet for the past decade they are increasingly being asked to perform that role.

One Police Officer I know told me:

"this has been the case for the past ten years. What I am know worried about is most of these calls are urgent. Is the nurse going to be based in the Police Station for immediate deployment or will we have to wait for them to arrive? If so just as much time will be wasted doing that and people will get hurt whilst we wait."